June 2014

We recently chatted with The Staging Girl herself, Barbi Mackinnon, one of Charlotte’s leading staging professionals. We asked her to give us a little advice to pass on to sellers and to tell us a little more about the staging industry – we think it’s one of the most underutilized real estate services around.

Here’s what Barbi had to say in response to our questions about making your home look (and smell!) its best:

If you could give homeowners one piece of advice before putting their homes on the market, what would it be?

Hire a professional. Hire a professional stager, a professional Realtor and unless your Realtor has one, hire a professional photographer. You may be good at debate but you would never

We're dog people!

Our dogs are like people to us and we love how many places in Charlotte welcome them with open arms. This really is one of the most dog-friendly cities we know of! Whether your pooch likes romping at a dog park or prefers solitude to sniffing other pets there are plenty of places in town they'll love.

Some of the Hendrix Properties dogs...

Here are some of our favorite Charlotte locations for fun with Fido.

Frazier Park

With sides for both small dogs and large dogs, Frazier park is probably the best-known off-leash dog park in Charlotte. They even provide water for your pooch! Parking is ample and if you go on the weekends there will be plenty of other dogs for yours to play with on the 1.3 acres.

Custom kitchens are back, y'all!

As the recession's lifted we've noticed a sharp uptick in the number of homeowners we work with who've either recently undergone a kitchen renovation or are considering one. We've seen a lot of cool designs lately - materials, technology, fabrics - and if you ask us, a lot of national kitchen design trends sure do ring "southern."

The National Association of the Remodeling Industry says the top three kitchen renovation trends right now are: Lighting, Cabinets that Look Like Furniture, and Wine Storage. Who can argue with any of those?

We'd love to hear from you in the comments or on the Hendrix Properties Facebook page if you've done a recent kitchen redesign. Here's a quick look at some of our favorite trends

Obviously the "green" movement is nothing new.

Words like "sustainability" and "eco-friendly" and even "LEED-certified" have been bandied about for over a decade but we're noticing a huge upswing in the attention to earth-friendly details in residential properties, even here in Charlotte.

That's exciting stuff. All of us could probably stand to ride our bikes a little more and be more contentious about the water we're using, but for a lot of homeowners and home builders, starting from a green foundation is one way to get ahead of the curve. Let's take a look at some of the sustainable trends in the Charlotte real estate market, from Ballantyne to Huntersville.

Sustainability-focused builders are calling Charlotte home more and more these days.